Arcane Apocalypse ~ 160 (Patreon)

“Long day?” Mia asked, glancing over at her brother with a raised eyebrow. She was back in the abandoned school gymnasium, testing her newly learned spells. Gabe just wandered in, watching her while looking especially broody. “You’ll get wrinkles if you frown that much.”

“I’m a half-elf, I can’t get wrinkles,” Gabe said, huffing in amusement. And was that an interesting nugget of information? Half-elf, not a halvyr. Out of the three siblings, only Mia turned out to be a halvyr while both Gabe and Sophie were just half-elves. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with that information, but it was interesting nonetheless. “Trying to set up a form of government everyone is happy with is quite difficult, who would have thought? I just wish they’d leave me out of it, but apparently being able to squish Rank 3 monsters to death makes me someone whose opinion matters.”

“Did they finally decide on something? The deadline is in a few hours,” Mia asked. She’d been keeping somewhat up to date on how things were going as the past week went by, but didn’t involve herself in the politics that were going on. She was much more interested in spending the day relaxing and consolidating her gains. All her runes were slowly getting upgraded to Rank 1, new spells were getting added to her Spellbook, and she was getting close to being able to manually copy Rank 0 runes. 

“Yes,” Gabe said. “There will be two rounds, one in which every single resident of Graz can write down the name of a single candidate they want to be Mayor, and then another where they have to vote again on someone from a list which will include those candidates whose names appeared at least a hundred times.”

“They discarded that council idea?” Mia asked with a raised eyebrow, deciding this was more important than continuing to play with her half-working spellcircle. 

“That’s still a thing,” Gabe said. “The nine runner-ups get to sit on it, and they can veto whatever the Mayor does if they have a two-thirds majority vote. It’s also going to be repeated only every five years, but with the Mayor being re-electable for up to five times.”

That sounded reasonable. She wasn’t sure about the council thing, but governments needed checks and balances, and without the Supreme Court, there would be no one, aside from the Marshal, to whom the elected Mayor would have to answer. Mia felt that this system had a pretty good balance of centralised power to get stuff done in a reasonable timeframe, without too much bureaucracy getting in the way, without it paving the way for a dictator to take over.

“Can the government system be changed later on?” Mia asked. 

“Beats me.” Gabe shrugged. “I didn’t pay that much attention to it. This system is mostly the General's and his people’s brainchild; the rest of us just nodded when appropriate and made some minor modifications. The vote for accepting it should be going out any minute now to whomever the System deems to be the hundred most ‘powerful’ people in the city.”

Mia hummed thoughtfully. “And why are you here? Did you come over just to make me uncomfortable by broodily staring at me from a corner?”

“ … pretty much,” Gabe admitted a bit sheepishly. “I don’t have much to do besides stick around, so the monster deterrent field is scaled up to Rank 3. I wanted to check out what you’ve been up to anyway.”

“You don’t want to help out with rounding up the beastkin raiders still on the loose?” Mia asked, eyebrows raised questioningly.

“That Shadow is making herself useful hunting them down,” he said with a careless shrug, though his distaste for the woman in question was clear. “Trying to worm her way into the higher-ups' good graces.”

“And that’s … not good for us?” Mia asked leadingly, causing her brother to sigh.

“I highly doubt we will ever have good relations with Starhaven,” Gabriel said, massaging his temples tiredly. “I talked about Arwen before, the ‘rogue’ prince who took me into his adventuring party when I was at my lowest?”

Mia nodded. Gabe had been very … concise about the retelling of his past where it concerned any of the friends he’d made along the way. 

“I knew the System would come to Earth, to this entire universe, all of us who’d been thrown into the Mystic Realm for five years were told from the start, we were also told what it would mean for our world,” Gabe continued. “I thought … that Arwen might be supportive when the time came for me to leave, hell, I even hoped that he and the others might join me. He’d adore wandering the wilderness and diving into new wild Rifts one after the other … but when the Cosmic Realm opened up, and the Planemerge happened, the King and the Crown Prince were gone, leaving Arwen to take up the Regency and hold his country together. I’d never seen him be so responsible. Never knew he could put the kingdom before himself like that, and I suddenly wasn’t so sure anymore whether he’d let me go. Prince Arwen would have, I was sure of that, but the Regent Lord of Starhaven? I couldn’t risk him saying no, not when your and mom’s lives could depend on it, so I didn’t even ask. I just waited for an opportunity and … left.”

“Sooo,” Mia said after a long moment, still processing her brother’s words. “On a scale from one to ten, how likely is it that he is holding a grudge?”

“I don’t know,” Gabriel said with a pained grimace. “Fuck me, I have no idea. With how absorbed he’d become in his role as Regent Lord, he might ignore his grudge if it’s beneficial for the kingdom, he might not hold a grudge at all, or he might view what I did not as a mere personal betrayal but outright treason. It could go either way. But don’t worry about that, I’ll deal with it as it comes. So! I came to see how you were doing? What’s my favourite little sister up to in this rundown gymnasium?”

Mia gave her brother an unimpressed look at his shameless attempt to change the topic. A brick to the face would have been more subtle, but in the end, she decided to indulge him. He seemed … miserable when talking about how he had betrayed — because that’s clearly how he viewed his actions — the man who’d helped him out. If he wanted a distraction, Mia was happy to provide one. She hated seeing him so melancholic.

“Consolidating, I’ve been doing lots of consolidating,” Mia said with a wry grin. She almost wished she’d picked the option that would have upgraded all her runes to Rank 1 during the Rank-Up; it was taking forever to do it all manually. She knew she’d chosen the better option in the long term, but she was still annoyed at how long it was taking, even with her magnificent Soulbound hat speeding things up. “And practising with my new and upgraded spells. I think I’d have gone mad if all I did was diligently absorb and then fuse runes to upgrade them.”

“What new spells did you get?” Gabe asked curiously, and Mia saw in his eyes that same glimmer of enthusiasm she saw in the mirror. She grinned, knowing she’d found a kindred spirit and fellow magic nerd in her brother.

“Mage Armour for defence,” Mia said, starting with her boring but much-needed first choice. “Then Mass Find Familiar and the Unseen Servant summoning spell.”

Out of all her Runic Lexicons, perhaps the Summoning one had been the best one, with the sheer variety of Rank 1 Find Familiar variants it contained. There were three variants of the spell that were so different they might as well be entirely new spells. The only one she hadn’t learned yet from that list was the Phantom Steed variant, which repurposed the spell into making a rideable mount instead of a combat summon. It was still just an arcane construct possessed by an Arcane Elemental, but designed with a purpose in mind. It was enlightening and gave Mia lots of ideas for what kind of spells she wanted to work on and customise for herself when she finally had the time. 

Likewise, the Unseen Servant made a humanoid arcane construct, just wove in a small illusory add-on that made it invisible to the naked eye. The standard version made the shell frailer than the original Familiar spell, mostly because the illusion portion couldn’t hide it if the mana contained was beyond a certain level, but Mia was sure that could be rectified if she put her mind to it. But it would need time and effort … neither of which was a resource she had in abundance with so many things vying for her attention. 

She also had that juicy Golden Apple Natural Treasure she received for finishing up the Newcomer Questline a while ago to chow down on, but couldn’t quite yet. That ridiculous fruit would give every single Sub-Attribute a nice +3 in Gained Stats, but after some quick calculation, Mia realised that she didn’t really have the capacity to absorb all of those stats anymore. Gained Attributes had an upper limit which could be calculated simply by multiplying your Level by ten. Both Free Attributes you gained from levelling up and Attributes gained by ingesting Natural Treasures counted toward that cap, and Mia was sitting at 88/100 with her being Level 10. If she ate the Golden Apple now, a whopping 15 Attribute points would go to waste, so she had to put getting three Level Ups onto her to-do list. 

“You’re leaning more heavily into the summoner mage style of combat?” Gabe asked, and Mia grinned in response.

“A bit, but I want it to go a bit further than that,” she said. “I got offered a Secondary Skill not too long ago, which would let me possess arcane constructs with my Wisp Form. I got three different Traits during the Rank Up to boost my Wisp Form, and Sparkle promised to help me get the Skill manually. With another Trait making any arcane constructs I make more solid, I think it would make for a pretty good synergy if it all came together. Might even be enough to make a Primary Skill out of it, kinda like my own arcane version of a Werebeast transformation, so I could have some more survivability and close quarters combat capabilities.”

“All that combined with your Spirits of Duality Skill?” A grin matching her own stretched across her brother’s face. “I like it. I’ve fought a mage who mastered Wisp Form and incorporated it into his magic, and he’s been the most annoying, most slippery asshole I've ever had the misfortune of coming across. But even if he only used it to teleport around, he could kind of latch onto spells he launched. Do you know how annoying it is when you have a dozen Arcane Bolts flying at you, your enemy is nowhere to be seen, and you know he can pop out of one of those Bolts any moment he wishes?”

Now that was giving Mia even more ideas. Whoever this Wisp mage was, she already liked him. As any competitive PvP gamer worth their salt would tell you, the mental battle was half the game. If you could annoy your enemy into getting angry, you were halfway there to victory.

“You still have 8 empty pages in your Spellbook, right?” Gabe hummed. “Any thoughts on what to put there?”

“There is a neat, new version of the Shield spell that can be kinda pre-casted and left to be activated later on a moment’s notice," Mia said. “I want that, then there is Dispel Magic from the Abjuration Lexicon and Warding Glyph from the Wards Lexicon, which is just a magical landmine, and I adore that. The other things I want are just upgrades to spells I already have in the Spellbook.”

Mia would be worried about her offensive capabilities, but in reality, she had more than enough. Her upgraded Spectral Blade, her now Rank 1 Arcane Blast, Sparkle, her Mass Find Familiar spell and of course her Black Knight. Plus, she had a bunch of Arcane Bolt variants she could use as a reference to customise Arcane Blast if she wanted and had the time. The idea of stuffing the explosive element into a piercing Bolt variant and making it explode only after entering the target’s body had been one of her better ideas to date, though she didn’t know how troublesome actually developing the spell that way would be in practice. 

“I have a few handy utility spells I can freecast manually,” Gabe said thoughtfully. “Can you make your own runes yet?”

“I think I’m getting there,” Mia said, biting her lower lip in consternation. “I can almost copy runes. I think I’ll get there with some practice or a few more points in Control. I’ll be able to for sure once I eat that Golden Apple. Why? What type of spells can you cast?”

“Mainly Wards, I know a good number of those from Rank 0 all the way up to Rank 2. I also know a bit of divination, some minor illusions and other utility cantrips that can come in handy,” Gabe said. “So when are you planning to head out to Level Up?”

“Soon-ish?” Mia said reluctantly. A large part of her really, really didn’t want to see another monster ever again. She was starting to relax again, with the threat of imminent death no longer hanging over her head. The rational part knew she couldn’t grow lax, and yet another part of her was almost eager to test her new spells and Skill against something alive, something she didn’t have to hold back against. “I want to get all my current spells to Rank 1 and also add that reactive Shield, at the very least.”

“That’s reasonable.” Gabe nodded, giving her a reassuring smile. “You’ve adapted to this horrible world well. I’m glad you weathered the … transition better than I had.”

Mia’s expression fell at the sight of the melancholic grimace on Gabriel’s face. She hadn’t adapted ‘well’, in her own opinion, but she also knew she could have been much worse. Gabe hadn’t gone into detail on how his first few months after the System kidnapped him were beyond the most crucial elements, but the implication had been there, and Mia had heard it loud and clear.

“I was lucky,” Mia said, and she genuinely believed that. If she had to deal with either Mark or her mom dying to the monsters in the first few days … she had little doubt she would have crumbled like so many others who lost loved ones had. “So, Levelling… are you going to come with? It would be nice to have a safety net for a change when we fight.”

“Yes,” Gabe said. “I can’t go into Rifts with you, but I can help you when you’re fighting wandering monsters, and besides, I’ve spent the last five years of my life learning how to fight. It’s only right that I try to impart some of my great wisdom upon you; basic combat instincts and a self-taught fighting style can only take you so far. Unfortunately, I can’t really teach you spellcrafting since I was never a proper Mage, so you will have to figure it out yourself.”

“That would be nice,” Mia said with a smile. She’d been winging this whole fighting thing so far, doing whatever felt right or sounded logical, but she knew a civilisation like Starhaven that had been around for so long, developing with magic being a thing from the start, probably long perfected the use of it in battle. “As for spellcrafting, it’s not a big deal; it’s fun to figure out myself. It’s a bit like programming, just more … artsy. Whatever I get from runic lexicons will have to do for now.”

“Artsy?” Gabe asked, an eyebrow quirked up in apparent amusement. 

“Well, it has its rules and laws, but while half of them have mathematical or programming vibes to them, the others remind me of stuff I learned in literature class,” Mia said. Symbolism was a big part of spellcrafting, according to her books, but so were the rules governing how to balance runic weight across the circle, the ones demanding symmetry be maintained, or even the many different types of runic sequences one could use. Art, mathematics, literature, poetry, algometry. Spellcrafting reminded her of aspects of all of those. “Hell, there is stuff in here that’s kinda like colour theory in how runes with contrasting or complementary symbolism can enhance each other's potency when they are used properly.”

Some rules of spellcrafting seemed contradictory, and yet they managed to coexist all the same. Two runes that weakened each other due to their opposing natures in one spellcircle could do the opposite in another. It all depended on how the spellcrafter utilised them. 

“Anyways!” Mia cleared her throat awkwardly, noticing the amused, teasing grin tugging at her brother’s mouth as he watched her ramble excitedly about magic. “You mentioned spells? You have Wards, and cantrips?”

If Mia recalled correctly, cantrips were a colloquial term used to describe simple Rank 0 spells that use fewer than twenty runes. They were quick and simple, so much so that almost anyone who had mana and pushed their Memory and Control attributes above a base level would be able to cast them with little trouble. A regular Level 1 might have trouble perfectly memorising and recreating even a simple spellcircle from memory, but that stopped being an issue once your attributes rose beyond a certain level. 

“Yes, I have something a bit like a runic model, just limited purely for runes and spell circles that come from the Warding aspect of Arcane magic,” Gabe said, then suddenly grinned. “How about this? You do well in training and then against some live monsters when we head out to prune the local monster population, and I’ll reward you with spells.”

Mia wanted to be annoyed at him trying to make a game out of something that could be a life and death matter … but it wouldn’t be, now would it? Not with Gabe floating above them and acting as a safety net. So instead, she just shrugged. “Fine by me.”

It felt a bit strange that he was trying to make a game out of it, but she decided to indulge him. That stupid grin looked much better on his face than the miserable grimace he wore not so long ago. 

******